Below is the agenda for this meeting, and below that are my agenda analysis and meeting review.
A. Agenda Analysis 1. Pending construction projects and square footage change, items 6 and 7: These are the bond related items. 2. TASB policy changes, item 10: My ongoing issue with the District's policy changes is threefold. First, a private association, TASB, drafts them, not the District, and the District appears to have no real involvement with TASB. Second, they aren't published either on the District's website or at the meeting so that if a parent, student or member of the community wanted to comment on them during open forum (before they are passed) they couldn't. Finally, typically board members don't read them in advance of the meeting and, instead, rely on the superintendent's cursory review at the same meeting they are passed. This means there is more often than not no substantive board discussion of what the policy changes mean and board members are clueless about the content of the policies. There's a lot of meat on this bone. Here's a link to the IC ISD policy manual. You might be amazed at what all is in there.
Sometimes one can Google the policy update to see if another ISD has posted something online about it. Here are some explanatory notes I found from Katy ISD on TASB update 122. Here are some explanatory notes on Update 123 from College Station ISD. Look, it could be that only a lawyer could enjoy reading and questioning policies (I do), but alarm bells should be ringing when there is simultaneous board member and public disengagement on policy matters...and a private association is doing both drafting and interpretive comments. Who is really in charge? Are school board members leaders or followers? 3. Closed session and action on closed session, items 14 and 16: I always highlight this portion of each agenda. The District, as is apparently the case with most school districts, does not have a lawyer present in closed session to make sure that their discussion about personnel is within the boundaries in the Open Meetings Act. This part of the meeting is always a cloudy day if you are for government in the sunshine...or if you are a teacher.
The Irion County Commissioner's Court is considering whether to expand or rebuild the Community Center. Read my public comments about that at B1 here. There's good reason to be concerned about our community's self inflicted wound of local government flooding itself: If the impervious cover of the Community Center is expanded, then that additional stormwater will flood the IC ISD football stadium. The improvements made to the football stadium with the 2019 bond funds were minimal at best. See the last photo on this page to see how close it was to flooding just a few months ago.
B. Meeting Review
Open forum, item 5: A truly inspired speech was given by an IC ISD student on how to re-purpose the turf at the football stadium once it is removed. He read from his prepared remarks, he was organized and he was concise about what he was recommending. We all recognize in some way that we have a right under the Constitution to petition our government. But we perhaps do not know that the interpretation of doing so to "redress grievances" has been given a broad interpretation. A grievance doesn't have to be a full blown human rights violation. Indeed, as it was here, it was a playground issue - the playground has stickers and the turf would cover them up. "Petition" has broadly been interpreted as a request that government use it powers to serve the interests and prosperity of the petitioner. Best of all, there shouldn't be a petition cop at the door of a school board meeting room telling citizens what they can and can't say in open forum. The general rule is that prior restraint of speech is illegal. (But see 551.007 of the Open Meetings Act for what speech is allowed.) So, kudos to this student for exercising his free speech rights. Read more on right to petition government here.
Bond matters, items 6, 7, 9c and 11: a. There will be additional square footage (3,000 to 4,000 sf) added to the elementary design to accommodate potential future growth, at a likely cost of $1.7 million. It's not certain just yet where this money will come from. Hold that thought! b. Demo of elementary will start in mid-March. c. End of January will be when bids are published for construction of the bus barn, Estes Gym and cafeteria expansion. The drainage, detention pond and practice field for band will be a separate phase and those bids will be published in March. The band practice field location has been moved from the west side of the band hall to the east side of the band hall, which appears to explain why there has been a delay on getting the bids out on the drainage and detention projects. This also means that the City of Mertzon and IC ISD have not agreed to the MOU that closes a portion of the street. d. Football field turf and track: The Board accepted a $1.03 million offer from Hellas Construction for new football field turf and track. Here is the offer document. The Board approved Proposal alternatives 1 and 2 on page 2. e. Order of operations: The prayer fence needs some editing: Add "Don't pray for rain". Here's why. Like the build out with the 2019 bonds, the construction at the football stadium is coming first. That construction will start in May/June this summer (2025!) and will take only about two months. The football stadium is the IC ISD property at the lowest elevation, and it is the most vulnerable to flooding. See my topo map on this page. We typically get a summer monsoon in July or August, so the new turf and track are going to be vulnerable right away. Next up, according to the bid schedule as described by Supt. Moore at this meeting, will be bus barn, Estes Gym and cafeteria extension. I still can't report how much additional stormwater will be added to the basin from this construction, but there will be more runoff that will flood our streets, our homes and our new field and track. The next bidding will be the drainage and detention pond and the band practice field. (The timing of the bidding for the elementary and parking lot construction was not discussed.) Time will tell whether the flood control structures should have been built first, not third, to protect our streets, homes and City Park from flooding. And, as I explained to the County Commissioner's Court, I am suspending my opinion about whether the flood control structures will even be built. So, none of this is written in stone.
Administrative reports a. Cost of electricity - I've been requesting the District's electricity bill via the PIA for some months now. My reasons are straightforward: One of the school bond reforms that needs to be adopted is that voters need to be informed what the additional expenses to the school's Maintenance and Operations (M&O) increases are expected once bond build out is complete. Those added expenses grow over time! The way these bond packages are presented to voters when they are proposed is that homeowners will not see an increase in the Interest and Sinking (I&S) taxation of their property value. What isn't discussed are the long term M&O costs that the taxpayers will have to bear. How much are we talking? The October 2024 monthly invoice from TXU for electricity for all the District's properties was the highest its ever been at $24,982.28. The same month back in 2006 was $11,330! Of course, electricity was cheaper then, but the District also had less square footage to heat and cool. Electricity for City Gym these days can vary from $2,000 to $3,000 a month! Add to that the expense of maintaining its specialty AC system, and over time the District has placed a huge tax burden on its citizens...after having told voters before the bond election that they wouldn't see any increase in their taxes for I&S, the pot of money where the payment for the bonds comes from. b. Superintendent Moore's report at this meeting included an update on her work with Ideal Impact, a company that modernizes campus heating and cooling with centralized smart technology. She gets kudos from me on this issue. I was forecasting to her predecessor, Supt. Ray DeSpain, that the District was going to be experiencing high electricity costs for the new gym while it was still being constructed...and he ignored me. I'll be continuing to look at the M&O costs with the 2024 build out. If the District doesn't control its M&O budget, it can't pay off these or the 2019 bonds early. In hindsight that will make the whole rolling bond concept of always issuing bonds to have been one colossal mistake. That is, the District will not be able to pay off its bonds early if it can't afford its M&O expenses. Put another way, the Texas legislature's funding mechanism that permits wealthy school districts like IC ISD to keep its I&S wealth local will have backfired. c. Enrollment is at 203 in elementary and 134 at secondary, totaling 337 students in the District, according to Principal Parker. 4. TASB Policy updates 122 and 123, agenda item 10: These updates were handled as I discussed above at A2 above. Supt Moore during her presentation explained that the District would have to send the proposed policy changes to their own attorney if there was to be any change by the Board. No doubt that would be added expense to the District. However, it is also important to consider the role of the Board. Is the board a doing board or an executive board involved in assisting the superintendent in evaluating and executing policy? One way to answer this question is to look at time management during the meeting. What agenda items do the board spend most of its time during its meeting? This meeting was a perfect example. The Board spent way more time discussing the new football field and track proposal, even going to the extent of physically handing and evaluating the field padding with the vendor, while spending no time discussing the TASB policy updates. I contend that it was the Board's doing of athletics in 2019, as opposed to executing policy (executive management), that caused it to spend most of a $18 million bond on a new gym and football stadium upgrades, while spending no money on classrooms. One solution here might be to adopt future TASB updates in a 2 or even 3 step process. Introduce the amendments one month, adopt them with board review the next month. Forcing a one meeting adoption process for complex policy issues (and there was lots of complex issue in these updates) is a lot to expect for the average board member. These are complicated changes that deserve more opportunity to read, comprehend and discuss intelligently. I will be reviewing these changes in the future with a PIA request. 5. Closed session, items 14 and 16: My schedule didn't permit me to stay through to the end of this meeting, so I did not attend the return to open session at item 16. Supt. Moore has advised me that no action was taken. 6. Attendance: All members were present at this meeting, so attending were Maegin Carlile, Ricky Rey, Ashley Hill, Tony Martinez, DJ Rainey, Taylor Douglas and Chad Koonce.
Copyright 2025 G Noelke